Fearful Teachers Hack Computers at Vanderbilt University
This morning I taught a basic computer maintenance workshop to a room full of public school teachers at Vanderbilt University. The workshop, called Teacher’s Technology Toolbox, is offered by Vanderbilt’s Office of Community, Government & Neighborhood Relations. It gives public educators a chance to learn to maintain and upgrade personal computers. And the icing is, at the end of the day, they take a refurbished desktop PC home to keep.
Warwick and I teach this workshop a few times each year, and I am often surprised at how quickly non-technical people can catch on to technical tasks when they are given thorough, clear, kind instruction. We see third grade teachers come in the door who are shakey when asked to ‘right-click’ a mouse; but over the course of just a couple of hours they will successfully upgrade a hard disk, a CD drive and RAM. After being given this opportunity to overcome some of the “fear-factor” associated with computers, they leave with the motivation to tackle other technology problems in the classroom.
Those of you who work in public education may also want to check out the K-12 video conferences offered by the Vanderbilt University Virtual School. Great stuff for teachers. Interesting technology. These are the same people who organize the Teacher’s Technology Toolbox.
For more information about Teacher’s Technology Toolbox or the Vanderbilt University Virtual School, contact patsy.partin@vanderbilt.edu.